This NPR piece by Robert Krulwich made me think about cities in a whole new way.

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"I don't know if it's fair to do this to a city, but let's start with Berlin. Here's Berlin as you'd see it from above.

Berlin from above.

Here it is again, after an autopsy. The city has been dismembered, dissected block by block, the blocks then categorized, sorted and stacked by shape. Berlin, of course, contains mainly rectangles. It also has trapezoids, triangles and, down in that last row, weirdly shaped squiggles that represent actual city spaces. So, if you are walking through Berlin, the cityscape isn't going to repeat endlessly. There will be surprises. There are some totally irregular nooks and crannies there.